Level2wo

Marketing and Technology

Marketing and technology go hand in hand for a number of reasons, and for marketers, technology has allowed for a great many expediencies, as well as scalability, reach, and a good deal improvement in terms of measuring ROI. Below are some general, not-so-random thoughts on using technology for your marketing activities, including tactics to use for your overall marketing strategy.

In certain places I will simply list a tactic and why you may benefit from it, but I won’t go into the ‘technical’ aspect as much as simply state the benefits. Feel free to pop an email if you want specific questions answered. So what are some ways to use technology to market your product or service (or even yourself)?

Website
Seems basic, but a lot of companies do not have websites because they either don’t understand the value, think they already have enough business delivered through their current channels, or because they ‘haven’t gotten around to it’. All three of these reasons may hold some truth, but these days technology and marketing go hand in hand. A website is crucial to at least having a presence online, where most research is done these days. You want to break down all of the hurdles that prevent your customers and prospects from finding you, and chances are that they will do a little research online about your company before initiating any contact.

Websites tend to be of two types–the business card online, and then the interactive type, which includes websites where consumers and business can make purchases, gather information, participate in web communities and social media sites, or do a host of things that add value to a user’s life in some form or fashion.

Websites are a great marketing tool because they allow prospects and customers to approach your business at their own speed, research and browse your offering(s), and take the steps necessary to initiate contact–all pull marketing activities that require little work on your end (at least after the site is already up and running).

Email Marketing
Email marketing campaigns are a great way to market to a great many people quickly and at a very reasonable cost. The beauty of email marketing (besides reach and cost) is that measuring the ROI is much easier than it would be if you had sent out DM (direct mail) pieces and waited for the phone to ring as a result. Email marketing campaigns allow you to reach broader audiences sooner, and they allow you to make edits and changes in almost real time (try doing that after your DM piece has been printed).

Blogs
Blogs are a great way to communicate on a more frequent basis with your prospects and customers. Blogging allows you to provide resources and valuable information to your prospects and customers directly over the internet, and with the great many blogging tools currently in existence, it’s also a relatively painless process on your end. You just have to make the time to write, and have the ability to offer your audience something worth reading.

Online Advertising
Everyone has heard of google and Yahoo! (search engine marketing) and many of the other search marketing tools you can use to drum up business using keywords and search, but online advertising is much more than throwing some money on a google adwords campaign. Banner ads are a great way to build your brand as well as generate leads. Of course, you have to make sure your banner ad is a ‘good’ banner ad, and you have to make sure you’re advertising on the ‘right’ sites where your target market hangs out, but banner ads allow you the opportunity to compete with the big boys in your industry that have budgets much larger than yours.

Webinars
Webinars are another great way to draw attention as well as educate your audience while building yourself as a thought leader in your industry. These days it’s pretty simple to create a webinar, and vendors in the webinar business make it pretty easy to execute.

Hope the above has given you some things to think about. If you have any specific questions about how any of the above may be able to help kickstart your marketing program, give Level2wo a call, or shoot us an email. We’re glad to help.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS